Daddy
by feryvancy
Summary: In which poor Tweek has a sucky life. M to be safe.


AN: Surprisingly, I don't own South Park. This is in Tweek's POV.

… …

I don't talk about sex. Not really, anyway. Sex is rough, brutal. It fucks things up. Everything about it sounds clinical and false. Penis, vagina, anal, penetration, intercourse, orgasm, ejaculate, sperm, sexually active, sexually, sexual, sex.

Sex can't be talked about head-first. It's crude. Disgusting. Nothing about it ever sounds pretty unless you gussy it up (touch, caress, sigh, bind, close) and rile it up (fuck, hot, burn, shove, deep, hard, claw, bite, tear, scream,) and it all comes down to _push_, and there's nothing pretty about _push_.

So I don't talk about it. Nothing I say can make it lighter, only rougher, and why would I want to do that?

They made Craig talk. Craig had nothing to say, but they still made him talk. When _push_ didn't come out they shoved _push_ in, and they told him all about the _push_, they talked about how he was damaged and hurt and violated now. They didn't say dirty, but they said every other word and he could fill in the blanks.

Craig had nothing to say.

My father was a pedophile. Still is, I guess, but there's no kids where he is. He's probably getting gang-raped in a prison shower as we speak.

I don't remember when it started with me. I know it sounds bad, but I don't remember my first time. It has just blended into the rest of the times, not more or less painful that every other time. No less filthy.

I can't remember if he said if he did it because he loved me or because he had to punish me. Maybe it was both, or something else. He loves me so he had to punish me. He likes torturing me. He likes my tight little hole.

I remember him pinning me under him, grinding, whispering little nasty things into my ear. I was a little slut, a little princess, a little cumhole. I was a lot to him. None I should have been. Nothing I wanted to be. I wanted to be his murderer, if anything. Probably not even that. Taking someone's life is too close a bond.

I froze over back then. It was second grade, I think. Now that I think about it. I don't remember anything. It's just a blur.

Actually, I do remember some things. The times with my dad. I remember those clearly.

It was after Craig and I's fight that he told me to bring Craig home with me one day. I was numb, I followed orders, I didn't care. Do this, do that. Gotta live.

I didn't even know death existed back then, not really. I didn't know how it worked. If I did, I promise you that there's no way I would be here today. Sometimes- most of the time- I wish that I had known.

I brought Craig. Craig snapped. I saw if from the floor, where I was watching. His face went blank. He was gone, he wasn't in the room anymore, and my dad didn't like that so he threw Craig off and used me instead.

That look never quite left his face again.

Craig didn't move afterward. He stayed where he was sprawled on the floor, exposed and not even bothering to try and hide. Maybe he was playing possum, maybe he had gone catatonic on us, but all I could think was that I was jealous of him and how he was allowed to not have to burn the way I am now.

But why was I jealous? Did I not want to do this? _Yes._ So this is a bad thing? _Yes. _I brought this to Craig? It's my fault he ever had to suffer through this? _Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes._ The horror, the _suck _that was this occurrence had just hit me after years of being frozen alive.

I'd done this to Craig. Not that I had really given a flying fuck about Craig up until this day- not even the fight had fazed me- but now, this guilt that tore me apart at that moment, made me fall for him. I don't know why. I'm not sure I really did. Maybe. I don't know love, and he just made my heart explode, so maybe I just mistaken the emotion.

All I knew was that Craig, the recently used boy laying on my floor, is to be my world. All my loyalty is to him. I have to do everything I humanly can for him.

I started screaming. I screamed until I nearly passed out from not breathing. I hadn't screamed before, never made a noise, so my sudden screamed froze my father. Who was still buried in me.

That's how my mother found us. She screamed just as hard as I did, but not before nailing my father in the head with the rather ugly and heavy urn of my late aunt (who no one liked, but we got her life insurance, so we let her ashes stay in the house,) straight in his head. She called the cops.

She collapsed in the hallway. Passed out cold. I was the only one awake for the ten minutes it took for the cops to show up. I spent that time staring at Craig, my father's heavy weight still on me. I pondered if this was the last time I'd ever have to feel this way, pinned and torn. At the very least, I promised myself that Craig never would. Never again.

Craig didn't wake up until we were in the hospital. He thought we were still there for the fight. He honestly didn't remember what happened. "But I feel bad. Why do I feel bad?" Maybe it was the happy meds they were pumping into him-both of us- but he sounded so young right them. He was, really. He was ten.

I promised myself that I would never tell him.

My promise didn't stop our shrink from telling him. I wonder what made them think that was even _a little bit_ of a smart idea.

**SHRINK:** He deserved to know.

**ME: **Why, do you hate him?

I don't know why I have to see her. Why we do. What could they possibly do to help us? No amount of talking can help us, has helped us.

Hell, it made Craig worse.

It's hard to put a finger on how exactly it changed Craig. At first nothing changed. He was the same. There was no difference outside of the slight look in his eyes that hadn't left. But as time went on, as he went to talk to our shrink, it started to sink in more. Our sessions were right next to each other's. If anything, he looked worse every time he left that damn room. He heard more, understood more. Then he just hid. He didn't come to school. He didn't talk. He didn't do anything. I wonder if that's how I had looked for so long. I only saw him at our shrink's place.

After a few months, we had group sessions. Our shrink thought we could feed off of each other.

He looked so shocked when he first saw me with The Shrink (I didn't bother to learn her name, it's long and Scandinavian, and I never call her anything but Doc to her face.) I didn't play her games. Never bothered. I pushed her psychology BS with my philosophical BS and we BSed each other into oblivion.

Craig, apparently, had been playing with her. Hadn't known it could go any other way.

He joined the other side so fast I think The Shrink was a little surprised.

I can't say he was better once we became friends. He was definitely something other than lost, though.

He was _angry. _More than a little crazy. Nothing our shrink can really pinpoint, me neither, but it's there. A gleam right next to the emptiness.

He was angry at the world, how it worked, at time. At me. I think that was the best one. Someone to blame. Even if it's me. His best friend. His lifeline. I'm no good for him, anyway.

… …

I guess I lied when I said that I never talk about sex. Most of the time, I don't. I ignore its existence, as much as I can. It's a biological whisper at the back of my skull, and I ignore that. What I hear is the filth of it all, that screams at me from the front of my skull.

Craig doesn't feel the same. He's fascinated with it. He watches it from a distance, always watching for some PDA or some exhibitionist couple. Has enough porn on his computer to put many a male to shame. He can read people like open books, always stopping me when we're walking down the streets of South Park or in the mall or _anywhere_, really, just to say that they're tops, bottoms, straight, gay, bi, masochists, sadists, virgins, non-virgins (there's a lexical gap going on there,)… he sees all. I don't know how, and I will never admit it, but I find it fascinating.

One time, when we were fourteen, Craig had gotten his claws on some booze. Probably got it from the grocery store. No one fucks with Craig. Craig gets his booze.

So, a few bottles of whatever later, we were kind of a little tipsy. And laughing like hyenas.

**CRAIG:** We shouldn't even be friends, Tweek. I mean, where the fuck did we really meet?

Really meet. Really get into each other's lives.

**ME:** Being little cum-sluts for my daddy.

I said between giggles. Sex sits right underneath my lips, waiting to bubble out. I can't drown it out.

**CRAIG:** Nothin' but sluts.

**ME:** He liked me more.

Nothing to be proud of. Only thing I've ever done right, though. Other than the scream.

**CRAIG:** Whatever.

He turned to me. We were sitting on the roof of his car. Like I said, people do not fuck with Craig and his lawbreaking. Craig had his twisted grin glued on his face. Not a lot of people get to see that look. For a good reason. It's sick. Unhealthy. Mad. A view into his head. Mine. He continues quietly, musingly.

**CRAIG:** Only thing we've ever done that was any good for anyone was get fucked by your old mad. I wonder if that's all we're good for. Fucking. Getting used 'n' whatever.

**ME:** What? No. Don't be stupid. You're smart. You'll be so much more than that. And it happened once to you… not to undermine the suck. It's my ass that's gonna be sore for the rest of my life.

We laugh, but there was too much honesty behind our words. I can't pinpoint when our laughter turned into crying, with an equal amount of hysteria.

We're close. How can we not be? We've been tearing our way through life together for so long. Bullshitting The Shrink, our parents, our other "friends," school, the town, each other, ourselves. I think they're aware that we're shitting them, but they don't understand how or why or how much we need to. We lived in bullshit, and we help each other breath. The only ones that understand the hot claws that scratch at us from the inside out.

… **,,,**

It was a few months after that that I heard that Kyle had blown Craig in a bathroom stall during lunch. I hadn't believed it. Craig often disappeared during lunch, for alone time or just to get stoned in his car (he doesn't approve of me getting messed up, that time on the car had been a rarity.) I hated it when he did because that always opened the door for people to flow near me. Craig scared them away, too much for much of anyone to bother to try to help him, but I scream kicked kitten.

It had been Pip today. He was yipping away in his obnoxious voice about how we're immature, children trying to be adults, how we act isn't healthy. He didn't get ten sentences into his monologue before I punched him straight into his pretty, straight nose. I felt a crunch under my fist.

**ME AND MY FIST:** We are way more mature than you could _ever_ understand, you little foreign shit.

More immature that we could ever understand, too. But there's only so much shit that can get sucked into ones brain before it starts rejecting new shit.

I storm out before anyone can try to talk to me. And, because everyone hates Pip (even the teachers- he's smarter than them,) I don't get into any trouble.

As I made my grand exit, I heard Bebe and Wendy talking. Well, Bebe.

**BEBE:** Ohmigosh, you will _not _believe what I saw."

Wendy sighs the long-suffering sigh she has for her best friend. **WENDY:** What, Bebe?"

**BEBE:** I was, like, going into the bathroom to hang out-

**WENDY:** I'm sure it does hang out.

**BEBE:** Shut up. To _talk_-

**WENDY:** Mhm.

**BEBE:** _Shut. Up._ To _hang out _with Clyde, but you will not believe who I saw leave it.

**WENDY:** Who?

**BEBE:** Kyle and Craig!

**WENDY:** Wow, males leaving the male bathroom? Insanity.

**BEBE:** Shut up. That's not the point. Craig was all flustered- well, as flustered as Craig ever gets- and Kyle had a _I Just Gave a BJ _face-

**WENDY:** Is there such a face?

**BEBE:** You named that face, bitch.

**WENDY:** Good point. Carry on.

**BEBE:** And Kyle looked so guilty when he came out. I don't know why, everyone knows those two are homos. They both made out with Kenny at Tammy's last party-"

And then they're voices fade out.

I didn't believe them. Craig doesn't care about that shit. He may have the biggest porn stash on the face of the earth and the biggest sex-dar to match it, but he doesn't actually want to… do that stuff. If he did, he'd tell me. Come to me. That's what we do. Neither of us were…

I didn't see Craig until we met at his car.

**ME:** Hey.

I crawl into his car, feet tucked under myself, throwing the backpack in the back. He mutters back a greeting.

**ME:** I heard you got blown by Kyle today.

I thought he would just laugh it off and say no and we could go back to our asexual ways.

I got no such response. Craig went full-on statue-like.

He only does that when we reach topics he'd rather not talk about. Like our sexuality. That's The Shrink's new topic, now that's we're getting to _that age_ (even though we're already in _that age_.)

**ME: **… Craig?

**CRAIG:** Yeah.

**ME:** Yeah? Yeah, what?

**CRAIG:** He blew me. In that bathroom. And my bedroom. And his bedroom. And this car. Behind the school, in the locker room…

It sounded almost like it he was bragging about his conquests. Maybe he was. Why is that something to be proud of?

**ME:** That's… that had to take some time."

I felt my throat closing up. This was breeching the no-no topic. I had the feeling I was going to have to say something, but I don't talk. I just don't. There's never anything for me to say. Craig covers everything that needs to be said, and when he isn't around to say what I need to say there's nothing I need to say.

That's why I hate conversations like this. Most of the time they don't happen, but ever since his birthday he keeps trying to get me to talk. But I can't. I've never been good at saying anything important.

Craig does. Craig's a talker. A master at manipulation.

Craig's better at that kind of thing. At most things. I may have given him the kick but he was the one who started running.

The whisper at the back of my skull doesn't go unheard. It seems into the rest of it, and it sits there. I let it sit there. I wait for someone to come and light it on fire, to kick me in the right direction. I had always kind of thought that person would be Craig. That's what we've always done, drag each other through the flames.

I guess I was wrong. It felt so much like abandonment it's insane. It makes no sense. We were never boyfriends. I wasn't even sure that Craig like guys until right now. Craig was never mine to be jealous of.

And maybe that's just it. Maybe I've always thought Craig was mine. He's my mistake, my friend, my enemy, my confident, my reminder… he's the one that understands.

It was a swift kick to my lungs, that point where I realized that maybe, just maybe, we were not as infinitely tied as I had thought (maybe even hoped) we were. And I didn't like that one bit. I don't like sharing. I don't have anything to share, so even my nothing is _my _nothing. Nothing but Craig.

**ME: **W-w-why?

See? He got me all caught up and now I'm stuttering.

**CRAIG: **Because, Tweek! I'm a fucking dude! I want blowjobs and fucks and kisses and- fucking hell. You don't get it. You're so fucking stuck that you can't see anything. Can't even… you don't even want anything, do you? Not what Kyle wants-

We kiss all the time. I like kissing Craig. I can see its appeal. It's not passionate nor does it build up to anything (the whispering says it does, it should.) It's just-

**KISSING: **Hello, I'm here, you're here. I care about you. I like being close to you. It's nice being close to you. We can be close. We are close. I love you. You love me. We're _together._

**ME: **Yeah, Kyle the Whore.

**CRAIG: **Sex isn't our enemy, Tweek, despite what you may think. It's not just some fucked up thing that your daddy did to us. It can be something else. It can be… _cool_ and fun and- look, see, there you do.

I, too, am perfectly able to go stone-like, and that's just what I did. He went there, so I close up. It's not even that I wanted him to _stop_, I just… couldn't take it like this. So forward and easy and how much farther ahead he is.

He sighs.

**CRAIG: **I went to him because obviously I can't come to you.

_Burn._

**CRAIG: **You are just so… childish and… fuck, what do you want me to say? It's like I'm talking to a little kid who still blushes every time they hear the word 'cock.'

I do, indeed, blush every time I hear that word. It was one of my dad's words.

**CRAIG: **You don't want to, Tweek. How the hell am I supposed to come to you about this?

We're silent the rest of the way back to my house. When we arrive I grab my backpack and run to my room. I run past my mom before she can say anything, and hide in my bed.

It's the same bed in the same room in the same house in the same neighborhood in the same state in the same world as it was five years ago. Or however long ago the first time was.

I stare the ceiling. Somehow, the ceiling is the only thing not tainted in this damn room. Maybe because it's the only thing that I'd never stared at to distract myself. Dad never liked seeing my face.

It took me awhile, five times going through those words, before the word _replacement_ popped into my head.

Craig doesn't come to get me this weekend. We have a system down. I don't go over to his house lest I bother him when he's in a Bothering = Torn Off Balls mood. He comes over and gets me if he wants to hang out (which is often, but if he doesn't want to, he _really_ doesn't want to.) He refuses to set foot in here. I don't blame him. I'd do the same, but I'd have nowhere to sleep.

I wonder if he's fucking his new little wonder boy.

On Sunday night, I go over to Kenny's. He opens the door, cigarette hanging from his mouth.

**ME: **I want you to fuck me.

He stared at me, icy eyes sharp enough to cut diamonds.

**KENNY: **I don't want Craig to kill me. Not that'd really make a difference, but still.

**ME: **He won't care, trust me. And what does he have to do with this?

Kenny rolls his eyes.

**ME: **He's fucking Kyle, anyway. There's no reason for him to be.

Kenny just stood there staring at me for another minute, before he moved aside and let me in.

That's how I first got fucked by Kenny. It was rough and hard and painful. Pretty much how I expected it to go. Kenny has this angry, hateful, mean look in his eyes. I recognize a basic part of it. I wonder if got put there the same way it did us, by the same person.

He growls in my ear, calls me a bitch, a slut, and little whore.

I toned him out. I'm not here for him, or for me.

The next day, Monday, I'm limping so bad I can barely walk, let alone walk in a straight line. My ass feels like it had a rod shoved up it multiple times. Ever again will I say that phrase lightly. It's a semi-familiar feeling, only different this time. I put it there.

My limp is bad. Everyone can tell what I did last night.

Including Craig, the statue in the corner. The look I shot him, the waddle, translated as one thing.

**WADDLE: **I have, I will, I want. You aren't doing anyone any favors by going with the second best.

He looked the other way.

It took him walking into me and Kenny making out in the bathroom a few days later for his lid to flip.

My eyes had been open. I heard the door swing, and looked over to see Craig glaring with all his might. I winked.

He surged forward, yanking Kenny off and away from me. He hisses.

**CRAIG: **_Leave._

He doesn't hesitate, other than a glare.

**KENNY'S GLARE: **I _told_ you he'd want to kill me.

I wasn't unpinned for more than five seconds before another considerably more bulky body replaces Kenny's. Or maybe he just took his rightful place that Kenny was trespassing on.

That was how I got Craig the first time. It was a considerable amount more pleasant, even if my ass was stuffed with hand soap.

Craig whispered into my ear, too. Apparently, I attract dirty talkers.

I was_ his _guy, _his_ bitch, _his_ whore. _His, _damn it.

As it turned out, the _his_ made all the difference.

After two years together, I thought we were in the clear. I was sure that we were going to be together, high school love-struck cliché stupidity be damned, I was sure. I didn't think it was possible for us _not_ to be.

He was right about the sex thing, though. I guess. I won't admit it.

One night, I was staying at his place. I woke up early- before sunrise- to him stroaking my hair. Not an unusual thing. He liked to wake me up softly before he gets in his morning lay.

I told him once that he could just do it when I was asleep. He nearly had a seizure. He did not like that idea at all.

**HIS STRESS: **How could you ever say that? How could that possibly be okay? Why would you let someone do that to you?

I felt time reminding him that it was him we were talking about, but I decided that particular kink is something that he is definitely not a fan of. So I told him I was joking, I would never, he would never. I'm not sure he believed me, but it helped.

I woke up and nearly smiled at him, and he said, "You make me think of your father."

…

…

…

I stopped smiling. I felt my whole insides cringe and twist and cramp and protest at that sentence.

**PROTESTER'S STANCE: **Why would he say something like that?

I rolled over onto my stomach and told him we can do it like that this morning.

Maybe he was sleepy, maybe he felt guilty for saying that and was just following orders, but he forgot that I do not like doing it this way. I do not like fucking (or doing anything) with things I can't see. This position is a bad one. I don't like it. It made _me_ think of my father. But I couldn't let him see my face, see the tears rolling down my cheeks, couldn't tell him no.

When he was done I told him I forgot some homework at my house. I left.

The clenching hadn't stopped. I just didn't get it. How? _Why? _Why would he say something so horrible?

I skipped school that day. I couldn't spend all day sitting next to Craig.

When I entered the door, my mother called out for "me."

**MOM:** Good evening, Richard! You're home early today. Would you like me to make you something to eat? Tweek's in bed already if you want to go say hello to him.

Richard, of course, being my dad's name. I remind her of him, too. What is wrong with me? I don't know what happened to her after that day. She's gone, though. From this world. Sometimes she thinks I'm him, sometimes she follows me around asking where he is and why did I make him go away, sometimes she forgets I exist, sometimes she forgets he exists and existed to do what he did to me. Sometimes she doesn't do anything. I liked that the most. She's dead without actually being dead. I've given up on ever getting my mom back, but I still love her.

**ME: **I'm going to go and fuck our little boy, Sarah, dear.

I like fucking with her sometimes. Her face is unfazed, then alarmed, then terrified, to empty, and then she's back to that cheery housewife of before. Her mind is strong in their delusions.

I took a long shower. I cried some more in there.

I stood in front of the mirror, trying to see where they saw the resemblance.

It was abundant. My hair, which is my most notable feature, isn't anything like him. But my cheeks, my mouth, my ears…

Those aren't the most it.

He was a bigger guy. He had love handles, ones I can see growing on my sides.

Craig's slowing down in the whole growing up process. I've just started. Maybe if I could just stop that I wouldn't grow into looking like him anymore. When I was younger people always said that I looked like my mother. I want it to stay that way. She's tiny. I can do that. Stay this way.

I stop eating for the most part. I never stop being hungry, but every time I stand in front of the mirror and see our resemblance leaking away, I think it's worth it.

I can keep Craig this way.

I thought.

One day, four months later, I walk into school to see him and Kyle kissing. Not even making out, just kissing. Like we used to do when we were younger. I wait until the bell rings, until Kyle goes to class, to walk up to Craig.

**ME: **Does he make you happy? More than I do?

It's a skill I was fairly sure I'd been missing for years. I could keep him here and not miserable, but I can't make him happy, I didn't think I ever did. I thought we were fine with this, but there he went. With someone who could probably do better. He was healthy.

Craig looks unfazed by my presence. He nods.

**CRAIG: **Yeah.

**ME: **Okay.

So that was that. He walked to class. I walked back out the front door and back home, where my mom was in a dead day. I entered my room. It had changed a lot in the past few years. Craig had finally crossed its frontier, and eventually into my room. And once he was there, he tore it up.

Moved the bed. Sold the bed. Sold all of the furniture, painted all the walls, got rid of anything that he recognized.

I loved it. Not because I particularly liked how it looked- yellow is his favorite color- but because I couldn't look anywhere without being reminded of him. He even took my ceiling, pasting old Red Rider posters that his parents had started to bitch at him about having to it.

There was one pillow that he'd just gotten my a few weeks ago (I like pillows- lots and lots of pillows.) He'd hid it in his room until he saw it fit to give it to me. It still smelled like him. I held it and wondered what the fuck am I supposed to do know.

Eventually I settle on being his friend. If nothing else, I hoped I could be his friend. Be near him.

By the end of the week it became clear no such thing was going to happen. He stopped picking me up before and after school. Stopped talking to me. Stopped looking at me. I was nothing to him anymore.

Craig made friends. He hung with Kyle and his friends, not to mention the friends he had before. Some would say they were friends with me, too, but they'd be wrong. They were friends with Craig, and with Craig came me, so they tolerated me.

As I watched him go on with his life and grow up and be happy, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was the one who was keeping this from him the whole time. That when The Shrink created groups sessions she was hoping he'd help me.'

We'd floated together, keeping each other from drowning. But when we broke apart, he could swim away. I sank.

I didn't have anything to do anymore. Making Craig okay had been my only goal in life. Along with maybe keeping him, but the first one is top priority. And I had accomplished that. He's fine, now. Great, some would say.

My life goal was accomplished by the time I was sixteen. Then I was completely lost.

I watched Craig for awhile, trying to see if he was cracking. Possibly hoping to see that he wasn't as good as it looked. But he held strong. Eventually I gave up.

What was I supposed to do? I couldn't hurt him. Couldn't keep him. He was gone for me.

Eventually I got back together with Kenny. No one knew. He wanted to hide me. Not because he didn't want people to know that he had a guy fuck buddy. He just wasn't proud to be doing me. I was just easy. Vulnerable.

The day that Craig and Kyle were together longer than Craig and I were was the day I completely gave up. It was also the year and a half long anniversary of the last time we'd talked. We'd accidentally ran into each other.

**ME & CRAIG:** Sorry.

Then we kept walking. I'd looked back. Craig had not.

Craig and Kyle were going to college together. Not _together_ together, but same city. Boston, home of many a smartass college. Craig's going to MIT (which is right outside of Boston, but whatever,) and Kyle's going to Northeastern (he didn't get into Harvard- ha de fucking ha, bastard.)

I'm staying here. I'm stuck. Not smart enough or talented enough or motivated enough to do anything else.

Kenny and I are just gonna be washed up fucks together.

And I wasn't surprised when Kenny started binge drinking and slapping me around. It was only a matter of time. The apple never falls far from the tree. That saying scares me. I worry that's it's too damn true. My mom's dead days and slunk into me.

I don't let myself near kids. Just the chance that I could do what my dad did… fuck no. I worry that I'll be near them and just fuck them. I haven't been around a kid since I was a kid. I can die happy not knowing I'm like him, if I am.

It's a theory I'm never going to test.

I can't blame my mother for snapping anymore. I can't remember the last time I could say I was anything more than waiting to die honestly. I don't remember wanting to be alive. I don't remember how it felt to be really alive, either.

Five years later, I run into Craig.

I was at the pharmacy buying booze (which is the best medicine, obviously,) and at the checkout counter, there was no other than Craig fucking Tucker standing next to me.

I noticed him right away. The instinct to just let him go, let him keep living without me, was still strong.

He, apparently, was not aware of my plan. I saw him look, look again, and then he was staring.

**CRAIG: **Tweek.

I angle my face to hide the bruise on jaw before looking at him for a second, nodding at him. I look away.

Time was definitely not hard on him. He looked even better than he had when he left. He'd obviously swam even farther as I was sinking.

And then he was _smiling. _Smiling, not smirking at all, in my direction. He looked good and healthy and all grown up. I felt like a pathetic little kid next to him. It didn't help that he probably has a good eight inches on me height-wise.

I felt like crying and running into the street, straight into the bath of a speeding car, and finish the job the universe should have done years ago.

Last time I saw him it was the day before him and Kyle had left. I had wanted to see him so bad- worse than usual- and I figured, hey, it wouldn't be a crime just to tell him goodbye, right? So I had walked over, and the second he saw me he scowled and turned away, back facing me, turned back to Kyle and kissed him and everyone smiled and cooed at the couple.

I'd turned and ran away.

**CRAIG: **How's it been?

I can't do anything but shake my head.

**CRAIG:** What, you mute or something?

I nod.

**CRAIG:** Really?

I nod again. I grab a paper bag and a pen.

**MY NOTE: **I haven't spoken in four years.

No one has noticed the difference. Craig, though, has recovered from the shock. He barks a laugh.

**CRAIG:** You're kidding.

I shake my head no. There's never anything for me to say. No one to listen. No one I care enough for to hope they'd listen. The only thing opening my mouth has done for me is get me hurt. I've never had to talk. The only good thing I've ever done with my mouth was scream, and that was one time. None of the words were worth it. I could never say the words I wanted , either.

Craig's staring at me now. He takes a step back to observe me. I feel like running away. I know I don't look good. I haven't in years. I look like a heroin addict. I get scared of change, of good things happening. Good things can be taken away.

**CRAIG:** Shit, Tweek. What… the fuck.

His voice cracked.

I shrug. I go to walk away, but he grabs my arm. His fingers go all the way around my arm and then some. I'm by far too weak to pull away. My arm aches- he's holding a little too tight on a spot that Kenny hand _really_ held too tight last night, forcing my face into the mattress while he _pushed._

I try to keep my face hidden from him, hoping he wouldn't see exactly how deep I'd sunk.

**CRAIG:** Tweek, please… let me buy you some dinner.

Some dinner turned into some time that turned into a few weeks. He pried as much information as he could from me, even going out to buy me a notebook thingie for me to write in for our conversations. There wasn't enough to tell him to make him satisfied. He told me about himself, though, maybe hoping I'd open up more. He was back here to visit his family, something he hadn't done in years. He'd gone to MIT, got a degree in chemical engineering, then he took a few online classes for video game animation which is what he's doing now. He's interning for EA now, and he's probably going to get hired for real sometime soon.

**MY NOTE: **That's nice.

I wonder when he's going to leave, leave me here again and go back to LA or wherever the hell EA is located.

After awhile it became clear that he was fully planning on taking me back with him. Especially after he saw the bruises. Crazy bastard.

But I go anyway. I'm a follower by heart, and I'd follow Craig to the edge of the world and over.

He has a nice apartment in a nice neighborhood (I have no idea how he affords it,) and it doesn't take me long to think of it as home.

After a month, I ask him the question that's been eating at me for _forever._

**MY NOTE: **Do you remember back when we were sixteen and still together?

I don't know why I call it still together. It's been so fucking long that I should just call it were together and get over it.

He nods, like he's not sure where this is going.

**MY NOTE: **Why the fuck did you say, "You make me think of your father,"?

He freezes. It's kind of insane the amount of emotions, emotions that I'd seen before in him, that I see in his eyes.

**CRAIG: **I… you looked like a kid. You looked twelve… even now you look like you did when you were eighteen… probably smaller, actually. And you were small enough then. _Tiny. _This is not a good thing, you little anorexic bitch.

His lips twitch at his pathetic attempt of a jock (way too true,) and takes a breath, like it's paining him to say this.

**CRAIG: **I couldn't help but feel like I was using you. You looked young, acted young… Jesus, I couldn't shake the feeling you were only with me that way because _I_ wanted us to be together that way. Which made me think of how your dad used you. I didn't even know you were awake yet. I don't know what I was thinking when I said that, not really, but I remember feeling that way. Feeling like I was taking way too much from you and that you were too focused on me, that you needed something outside of me. Which I knew you weren't going to with me.

… Well, what the fuck am I supposed to say to that?

**MY NOTE: **Well, you're a stupid shithead, then.

He reads it and laughs.

**CRAIG: **Yeah.

Then there's an awkward silence. Change topic… I look around the room. There's a shirt on the floor that obviously isn't Craig size. My stomach gives a painful lurch, something other than hunger.

**MY NOTE: **Does your boyfriend know I'm here?"

He looks confused, and I point at the shirt. And he blushes.

**CRAIG:** Um… that's yours. Was yours. From when we were sixteen.

Now it's my turn to blush.

I'm not sure how we got from that point to me ending up underneath him, him _gliding_ back home. I think it started with me refusing to sleep without him laying practically on top of me, and always being by his side.

I guess eventually the tension bubbled over.

It feels like a bubble has popped in me. One that's been growing in me and suffocating me for the last seven years. I don't feel perfect, but so much better than I have in years.

And I think Craig's trying to startle me into talking. Waking me up singing.

**MY ALARM: **Goooooooooood moorrrrnnnniiiinnnngggg!

He sneaks up behind me in hopes to just surprise me into talking.

This morning it worked. Right after my alarm was done, smiling down at me, I talk.

**ME: **Good morning.

… …

AN 2.0: Okay, so I'm not sure of how this turned out, but I do know that I've been close to crying for the last half of this story. Reviews please!


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